


Wow! I Can't Believe How Much I Care About You!

by embraidery



Category: L'Oiseau bleu | The Blue Bird - Maeterlinck
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Friendship, Gen, Night being a sympathetic character, Quasi fluff, alternate universe - freeform, its modern-ish but it's not an AU it's a continuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 01:59:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12422706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embraidery/pseuds/embraidery
Summary: Once every few decades, Cat slips away to visit Night.





	Wow! I Can't Believe How Much I Care About You!

**Author's Note:**

> This work is heavily inspired by the meta generated by the actors of Cat and Night, as well as their portrayal, in the production I was involved in, which was a heavy rewrite of the Blue Bird, so this work's relation to The Blue Bird is a bit tangential, but it's fine. 
> 
> It's sort of a reincarnation AU in the sense that Cat remains the same although he has different cat bodies through the years. 
> 
> Chaton = kitten (I hope) and chèrie = dear. 
> 
> I have written this with the intention that Cat and Night have a platonic or mostly platonic relationship, but you may interpret their interactions however you like.

"Cat?"

Her voice rings out over the marble of the entrance hall. Tylette grins as he slinks around one of the watchful pillars. If he was anywhere else, he'd keep to the shadows, but she can see him better there.

"Night, _ma chèrie_ ," he calls back, making his way down the centre of the hallway. "I'm here."

"And damn right you are," her voice comes back. "It's been too long." She emerges from the shadows, long tendrils snaking over her shoulders like the hair she'd had before Tylette brought her a pair of scissors. They stand, face to face, a silent battle of wills.

Eventually Tylette extends a hand and touches her veil. "This is new," he says, ghosting two fingers along the outline of her face.

Night brushes by his hand with her own as she pushes back the veil. "I thought it added a certain _je ne sais quoi_."

"You're not given to clichés," Tylette says.

"Maybe I'm picking it up from you, _chaton_." Night walked back the way she came, Tylette trailing in her wake. "You're just in time. There's only half a bottle of wine left." She settles herself in one of her armchairs and watches Tylette over her shoulder. He stands in the entranceway and watches her in return before flopping onto the ground in front of her chair. He takes the wine bottle from the table and refills her glass before drinking straight from the bottle.

"Shall I let the pretty things out tonight?" Night asks. Without waiting for an answer, she leans over the balcony and flutters her wings. Tylette joins her as bright stars stream out of their cavern, leaving trails of light behind them. Fireflies wink in and out to the time of the nightingale's song. The fiery will o wisps join the twinkly star dance.

"They're beautiful," Tylette says, as he always does.

"You're so sentimental," snorts Night, as she always does.

"That's why you love me," Tylette responds in a silky purr.

"Do I?"

Tylette returns her gaze, head tilted to one side, smirking. He leans in as though to kiss her, but as she's leaning forward he blows a raspberry in her face.

"Still love me?"

She pinches him with her long nails and he yowls. "Brat," she says, smiling, and retrieves the wine bottle and her glass. He tries to take the bottle from her. "No wine for you!"

"I brought you something," Tylette says, "but you can't have it unless I can have more wine."

"Oh all right," Night says, pouring herself another glass before passing over the bottle. Tylette grins and downs the remainder in one. He pulls a wrapped package from the inside of his cape. He takes the wrapper off carefully and gets distracted by the crinkle, pouncing on pieces that fall to the floor until Night laughs at him. He "accidentally" knocks her glass off the balcony in retaliation. She sighs and flicks her hand, sending the glass flying upwards so she can catch it.

"So what is it?" Night asks.

"It's a camera."

Night makes a face. "Those old things? I thought you'd bring me a fun present."

Tylette tilts his head. "I suppose the last time I saw you, cameras had just been invented...they're more fun now!" He takes a small pink Instax camera out of its box and hands it to her.

"Humans move so quickly," she says.

Tylette taps the camera. "They have cameras smaller than this, but they brought back this older camera for fun." He snorts. "Humans."

Night turns the camera over and over in her hands. Tylette takes it from her and holds it out in front of them. "Look at the camera!" he says, and a second later a small square slides out the front of the camera.

Night catches it and stares at it. "It's all black!"

"Ah, that's what happens. The picture comes in slowly," Tylette says, waving an airy hand. They stare at the picture together. It stays black.

"Oh!" he says, looking around them. "I always forget it's so dark in here. We have to have some, er, light to take the picture."

Night scowls. She leans over the balcony again and beckons to the fireflies. They come streaming up to her and gather in a cloud in front of her face. "I don't need Light," she says, and twiddles her fingers so that the fireflies arrange themselves around their heads like a string of fairy lights.

Tylette shrugs and positions the camera in front of them again. Night's expression in the first snap is eyes wide open, struggling to look casual beside Tylette, who has his eyes half closed and a peace sign thrown up by his cheek.

Night insists on picture after picture.

Her smiles in the first handful are too wide, but before they take the fourth she's laughing in surprise as Tylette spins her into a dip. The picture shows Night grinning as Tylette takes the photo with one arm around her waist. In the next, she holds the camera as Tylette kisses her cheek.

After they've put the camera away and opened another bottle of wine, she sees fireflies behind her eyelids every time she blinks. She has way too much wine coursing through her veins and it feels suspiciously like love for the Cat, or does her love for the Cat feel suspiciously like wine?

He eventually leaves with sarcastic words and a tipsy kiss. She's a little more sober and ruffles his hair.

It's too sentimental for words, but she spreads the photos out on her bedspread and smiles at them before tucking them into the nook where she keeps her momentoes. She gets into bed, still smiling, and drifts off to peaceful sleep.


End file.
